i'm. still friends donald trump is willing to say america's with saudi arabia despite accepting that riyadh may have known about the plans to kill dissident journalist jamal. the suicide bomber targets

a religious gathering on an islamic holiday in afghanistan leaving fifty fifty people dead in the country's capital. mass protests over the french president's tax reforms on fuel leave one person dead and five hundred injured including dozens of police officers. and flying high for twenty years the international space station celebrates two decades of pioneering research behind the scenes and take a look at it both in a bit and on earth. it's midnight here in moscow and you're watching international live with me in a day or two to welcome to the program. the white house appears to have given the side. the benefit of the doubt as washington looks to continue with partnership

with the gulf state that's despite a statement saying riyadh could have been aware of a plan to brutally murder journalist jamal khashoggi he went missing after inside the consulate in istanbul back in october. our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information but it could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event maybe he did and maybe he didn't that being said we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of mr jamal khashoggi in any case our relationship is with the kingdom of saudi arabia they have been a great ally in our very important fight against iran. it was very widely anticipated many were wondering what would finally be said as in the aftermath of the killing a lot of rather contradictory words and contradictory messages have come out of the white house let's review what was said prior to today's statement. that he would be

as good a great ally they are ordering military equipment everybody in the world one of that order we got it and we got all of it every bit of it i don't like stopping massive amounts of money that's being poured into our country spending one hundred ten video to go over the military is one of those things that are created like the others for because now the statement that was released echoes some of what we just heard now it's called i say we standing with saudi arabia standing with saudi arabia is the title of the statement it blames the war in yemen on the islamic republic of iran and seems to emphasize saudi arabia's role in aligning with the united states against iran from there the statement goes on to talk about the large amounts of money that saudi arabia has invested in the united states the deals and contracts it has with weapons manufacturers saying that it would be not in the interest of the united states if these contracts were to be abandoned furthermore

refers to saudi arabia as being the second largest oil producing nation in the world now from there goes on to cite what he calls representatives of saudi arabia not specifying who they are saying that mr coo shoji was a member of the muslim brotherhood and an enemy of the state the state being saudi arabia he says he cannot confirm whether or not that's true from there he goes on to talk about the importance of standing with saudi arabia and maintaining the relationship saying it is consistent with absolute security and safety of america now the opening line of the statement says the world is a very dangerous place the statement goes on to indicate that. somehow aligning with saudi arabia is about keeping the united states safer and the statement does seem to indicate that regardless of saudi arabia being involved in this murder regardless being aligned with saudi arabia is in the assessment of the trumpet ministration the best move they go on to end this stage of the phrase america first

in exclamation points so it's quite quite a strong reiteration of the fact that regardless of the fact that this journalist was killed regardless of the murder of the shoji regardless of that united states will continue to maintain its economic and military alliance with the saudi kingdom . the fifty people have been killed and dozens injured in a blast in afghanistan is being reported that a suicide bomber targeted an area near a wedding in the capital kabul it is of course comes on the back of peace talks between the u.s. the afghan government and the taliban has claimed responsibility yet. for. this was a religious gathering by religious elders celebrating the birth of the prophet muhammad and the attackers somehow got inside the forest floor of the wedding

hall and detonated a suicide vest we have confirmation from one senior afghan counterterrorism official poured in explosives were used but the tragedy of this country i think lies in the fact now that the front line is everywhere the major cities including kabul is the target of such deadly attacks over the last four years almost twenty eight thousand five hundred twenty nine casualties are also there among afghan national security forces i mean look what you have to really see is that peace really remains elusive in this country for well over forty years now saw that statement by u.s. officials the gathering in moscow and other statements have really created some sense of optimism but at the end of the day everyone also knows that every side wants to really grab more territory we haven't really seen a ceasefire yet but there is expectation there could be

a ceasefire and on any normal day you're actually talking about a lot of coffins soldiers getting killed in bigger numbers civilians and as well as the taliban at the end of the day there are guns so the impact of all of these coffins and deaths on the afghan society is simply catastrophic. protesters wearing a yellow fasts have come out across france in response to president emanuel micron's tax hike on fuel people have been blocking roads and burning tires as well as clashing with police the demonstrators also set tollbooths on fire on the highway in their sacking francis se on tuesday night the police as well as gates and lights were have been damaged but the highway currently blocked challenge to penske has taken a closer look at what the. testers are doing. time here just on the outskirts of ruin where as you can see behind me there are a group of around a hundred yellow vests wearers these are the they've come out to protest against

the high tax on carbon and so on fuels hate in france which is increased by more than twenty percent in the last year if you just take a look you'll see that there's another group over here and what they're trying to do these are trying to blockade roads around about it's like this this is one of the main arteries that would go from blue on all the way to paris and as you can see they've brought some of the traffic to a relative cool some people have described it as operation a scald go the idea is bringing the traffic to as stancil or a cruel but nor actually completely blocking the roads one of the reasons that they've changed a tackle not when these protests started back on saturday four days ago they were actually trying to block the roads but that's caused them problems with the police and the idea here now is to bring the traffic to a snail cruel and to protest against not just the high price of fuel here in france but also the high cost of living in france let's have

a look back now at the protests over the last four days. was. your. birth. the burning fires to keep themselves warm here you might be able to see there's a fire just in the background there and if we walk around this roundabout you're going to see that there's another point here this is also where they're trying to stop the traffic and then again through the in the distance they really have got this entirely covered and what they saying is that i. president might call a said lots of things he said he's going to come into power he's going to make reforms he's going to change the french economy for the better but the people here say there is no magic formula and so for corn hasn't brought in

a magic formula let's have a listen to what the protesters themselves are saying we don't want this president and his government to be useful anymore we don't want them anymore we want to change the system. responds with new laws every year every month laws that are worthless we have to say stop we are not sheep we have no choice. that's right and i spend the night here to show that grew in this together and that we're going to make it to the end we're going to make it we're going to make it we are going to make it we won't let go i'm here all night again. as long as micron keeps clowning around with his pal and powder as he likes to say well we'll do the same we'll stay here. the protesters here say that they are going to stay this is now the fourth day of the protests and they have set up some sort of campaign that giving out food and drinks and they saying they determined that

they will dialogue with the government the president might call his said that he is prepared for dialogue but he hasn't said with whom and we've also heard from need to re in minister christophe customer today who said that he believes that the demands of the protesters are incoherent these protests continuing across france fourth day now and we also know that there is due to be a very big or at least that's how it is a big protest on saturday where the yellow vests will continue to call for a reduction in the price of fuel and a reduction in the price of living here in france. to take on travel accommodation. after the come to meet home listings located in the israeli occupied west bank from its website says the move was down to political in the disputed territory. we concluded that we should remove listings in israeli settlements in the occupied west bank that are at the core of the dispute between

israelis and palestinians on two hundred listings that will be affected with the decision is set to take effect in the coming days the company says it decided to remove the listings after determining they were in israeli settlements which are disputed but palestinians the move was welcomed by the palestinian administration which had previously asked the company to end its relationship with israeli settlements israel is condemning the decision calling it discriminatory. this decision is something completely unacceptable this is pure discrimination something that is taken only against jews that are living in jew day and sumeria this is actually a racist decision and more than that i do believe it is a double standard that is only taken against israel against jews that are living here in israel. we heard from the general secretary of the palestinian national initiative and a former colonel in the israeli army for their views on these decision. the

international law the united nations resolutions see that settlements are illegal and they are themselves discriminatory because they are built on stolen land from palestinians and that any relationship with these illegal settlements is a violation of international law b. and b. you just can pick and decision because they also realize that they will lose a lot because of the boycott campaign against them due to the evolution of international law what is really a racist and discriminatory is the system of apartheid that israel has created in the occupied palestinian territories which is favoring israelis to palestinians this should be a commercial company a commercial trading between of apartments a certain sort though turn to be as a result of being cowards or persia being made by islamic jihad always i don't know what but if you look for it backward to the history of under or the history of the

glory the right of the jews to their homeland the biblical whole and of judea and samaria lo how many christians are now angry about this this step this is an awful step being made the story again fate. european foreign and defense ministers have agreed on seventeen new projects for developing an army and despite the fact that the u.k. is getting ready to leave the european union it seems london still very interested in its affairs including defense of his political gives us the details but well he's definitely rubbish the idea in fact he appears to be following the first steps of the us president donald trump here last week tweeted that provisions were. learning german or preparing to learn german and till the americans came and saved them from occupation jaring world war two say he didn't take well to the idea of

a european army either gavin williamson similarly forceful in his words saying he said he told u.k. newspaper that an army certainly won't be happening on his watch take a listen it is an absolutely crazy idea nato has delivered european security for the last seventy years and we should feel very proud of it should we undermine that by forming a separate military force absolutely not you can absolutely rest assured that britain will never become part of the european army on my watch while some might question gavin williamson having an opinion or troll on any. new endeavors given that the u.k. isn't planning to be part of them they are leaving the european union nevertheless the idea for an army has been floated in the past by several leaders but has always kind of been a taboo subject but all that changed last week when muckle and emanuel both expressed their support for the idea as part of the world war one sent

commemorations take a listen to what each of the leaders had to say that. we need to show that europe is moving forward on social economic issues reinforcing the eurozone tax system for the digital circuits are our investment policy in invasion in order to show intelligence to the common defense and security of course through its we have laid the foundations for months arm was. one has to say that either we managed together to find local solutions step by step sometimes too slowly we don't get that also concerns the question of the defense of europe and the question of a long time and codifying to european only. when the message coming from the u.k. defense secretary today. is that france and germany already belong to one military alliance along with the u.k. the u.s. and a swathe of other countries remember nato and gavin williamson's point is that france

and germany should be aiming to meet their two percent g.d.p. target of defense spending on nato before they start thinking about forming any alternative armies now france at the moment spends about one point eight percent g.d.p. on defense and germany spends about one point two and the e.u. is very much part of nato in fact just today the e.u.'s top diplomat for. she met with the secretary general of nato in brussels and reaffirmed how important the military alliances take a listen corp with nato that is strengthening i would be pleased to welcome to the journal stoltenberg again this morning with us and our cooperation with nato and strongest ever so disagreement over an e.u. army maybe but there is one thing that all these countries agree on the u.s. the e.u. the u.k. is part of it still all agree on the need to defend themselves against russia

said it when making this e.u. army proposal and nato officials repeat it like a mantra that there is growing russian military activity and they need to be able to counter it. we spoke to political analyst chris brown and he told us that have been williamson doesn't want the u.k. to be left out in the cold by the u.s. . britain is wants to keep nato as the sole game in town because of its links the united states that's why the united states wants to keep nato and they don't want to european army so britain does not want something else rivaling that but i don't think there's any really serious commitment crazy if you like it's a rival to nato as i say would involve a huge amount of defense spending the reason why britain britain is backing america of course is that britain and actually friends with the two european countries which had

a relative military way unlike germany and intervened in afghanistan or iraq in goodness knows where where else britain wants to keep and doesn't want to see itself be frozen are frozen which you would be if this when this went ahead the strange thing here of course is one of the destabilizing factors in europe has been the expansion of nato itself into eastern europe in the former soviet union that has led to the worries in more school about this process the feeling of the americans in nato of renege on promises made at the time of the when the soviet union collapsed gorbachev and it's strange that you know the nature of the nato expansion i see has these stabilize the situation in europe and know we have this other idea that added to this issue or another european army. it was on this day twenty years ago russia launched the first module of the international space station into orbit the earth is the third and brightest object

in the night sky and the largest land object in space first here's an anniversary message from the crew currently up there. we are proud to serve in such a ship. the international space station is a unique scientific platform. you don't usually speak of this does it look silly as the media. is you would do a bit of a smidgen of. stunts. says arguably the most expensive and one of the most complex structures have been built

as a union and he'll explain. it's both a green hosts and an aquarium and witnesses more than a dozen sunsets every day the international space station is one of mankind's greatest achievements in our modern world but how much do we really know about it let's take a closer look in three day the station is to fight it into two major parts one is effectively russian the other american however there's also japanese and european scientific modules you can see details here let's move to the russian segment which currently has four docking ports marked in red that's twice as many as the americans each segment consists of several smaller modules which is how the whole station was initially put together a lot like building a giant lego model the russian segment for example has five of them however only four modules can host the cargo space ships coming on board the i assess

efficiently allowing them to dock at any available port at any time currently three of those four docking ports are occupied one by the soyuz m.s.o. night which recently docked at the module the ship experienced an early which was fixed by the crew another docking port is occupied by the cargo ship progress zero nine which is stationed at the piers module and on sunday another ship the. ten docked in the heart of the russian segment the module carrying two and a half tons of cargo ranging from science equipment to air and fuel will this area is probably the most important for those on board it contains the life support and flight control systems also we can find the living quarters for three crewmembers a conditioner to maintain the correct humidity under even a kitchen table in short it's the russians living room. other modules of course are

equally important but. most of them serve as storage rooms and also a life for space walks and docking and there it is a short glimpse into the russian segment however the this isn't really about the russian or american sectors or even the space station itself the name of the game is global cooperation platform for countries to night as one which so far hasn't been possible to do back here on earth in space we are all allies. more than two hundred people from eighteen countries have visited the space station over the as it's become an example of international cooperation and a beacon of warm relations between two former cold war rivals here's a look at how the russia u.s. friendship developed to the new moon and back.

so you did ski american ski is enough to get the experience that you let it beat you to. come stuck to your yes q more. than that in the. commission or do you need it with the fortitude of i think the population rather better writer performer of the field. in a forensic there's less to her girl all these years i could sit there all it's iraq we are all for a brother for what. they

were cutting new ground he said well gosh let's see if we can build a bigger space station and what can we do what are the problems that might come up and what you learn. some of the money interesting and doesn't just give them more in them some listeners for falsely media if she were me i. think. that you suddenly choose the media team unity festival to be political seems the only real easter theme in similar.

you. make. me from a. little. bit on. the other you act. together. for the future. living in close quarters in zero gravity i mean some pretty clever designs for the molecules that make up the i assess ego shit on us being given unique access to the simulators where future astronauts get to grips with their home in space.

for two decades the international space station has been the most visible physical testament to man's dream of space exploration and like all things space it began as a smooth step which eventually turned to become a giant leap. in a way the international space station is the largest lego puzzle in the world because see it wasn't moved into orbit in one piece at first it was just one cargo module this is the exact replica of it its name in russian means sunrise and indeed it did become the dawn of the i assess as we know it's. this small jewel of a star it's more of a living space there's a cubicle here

a dining space also there's a docking simulation area as well where cosmonauts practice their sole use docking skills but some things hide in plain sight because this is an actual space exercise bike. the first person to enter the says is part of expedition one was this man sergei krikalev jr bush when you got the moment when we talked the first few modules was one of the most memorable in my career because ari was just floating around in space while we had the u.s.p.o. unity attached to our shuttle a picture of the two modules together became a symbol of a new era as nobody could tell where it would lead. during that flight the crew watched on from orbit our earth and to the next millennium since then the isis has grown into a sixteen more jewel station roughly the size of a football pitch imagine old trafford circling. but first both russia and

the united states sent crews into orbit but since the demise of the shuttle program culminating in its and in two thousand and eleven it's just be in russia. we got as close as we could to russia's workhorse rocket the soyuz during their journey to and from the international space station this is the module where crews spend hours of their time and i mean it's not very spacious it's actually looks small even for one person while it is designed to fit three inside it's a real work station and there are no random things here to mourn it is just to showcase all sorts of technical information about how the rocket is doing indicators buttons but the most crucial the buttons that attend the most crucial commands they're actually hidden behind small covers like this so they have to be lifted so that they are not touched or pressed by accident or in the. midst

of among these problems there's one that might seem strange commands to pressurize the cabin to let all of the air out of even one of the ships into orbit with it so that the crew can put out a fire. because this button is extremely important it has additional protection this small screw when the rocket detects a malfunction or meshes lies on this board and among them this one particular ball which we pretend to ignore says rocket failure is this top left one it turns red and the alarm goes off. for twenty years this station has been home away from home for adventurous visionaries overachievers risk takers people of action it's instilled a validation for discovering the are no one in our generation so that when its life cycle ends mankind's business is way beyond that first step into earth's orbit biggers dawn of arctic.